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Aquiel (episode)
Geordi falls in love with a woman accused of murder. Summary The ''Enterprise''-D is sent to deliver supplies to Communications Relay Station 47 near the Klingon border. Upon arriving, they find the station abandoned and the audio monitoring system in disarray. They also find a large, fluffy white dog hiding inside a service duct. The station's shuttlecraft is missing along with both Starfleet officers, Aquiel Uhnari and Keith Rocha. Doctor Beverly Crusher discovers cellular residue which must be the remains of one of the personnel. The blood traces match those of Aquiel, so she assumes the cellular residue is Aquiel's also, but must study it further in her lab to make sure. Lieutenant commander Geordi La Forge explains that encrypted subspace messages are all sent through a particular channel, and that someone has tried to bypass the access protocols, perhaps taking or rewriting some of the messages. La Forge accesses the station's logs, but at first can see only a handful of Aquiel's official and personal entries. Returning to her quarters, he peruses the logs accompanied by the dog, which he discovers was Aquiel's pet. Aquiel's personal letters reveal her to be a spirited, romantic Halii woman who was abused by her father, is intensely homesick for the rest of her family and traditions, and has difficulty getting along with "egomaniac" Rocha. At one point she confesses countermanding his orders. Aquiel also mentions that Cmdr. Morag, an aggressive Klingon, has been harrassing and threatening the station. Klingon DNA traces are found aboard the station, and when Captain Jean-Luc Picard asks the local Klingon governor to investigate, he turns up on the Enterprise with Aquiel, very much alive. Aquiel claims that Rocha suddenly and irrationally attacked her; she first tried to access the weapons locker, but next remembers escaping in the shuttle; she was picked up by the Klingons. Possibly owing to a head injury, Aquiel's memory for exactly what happened is spotty, and while she tries to remember and the captain waits for Cmdr. Morag to arrive, she and La Forge become friends. La Forge confesses he has read her logs. Dr. Crusher now assumes that the cellular residue is Rocha, but continues to analyze it. Rocha's log files turn up, showing that he was not as nasty as Aquiel experience him; in fact, he seems to have been a bright and promising officer. Aquiel's duty records, on the other hand, show her to be difficult and argumentative. Circumstantial evidence points to her as possibly having killed Rocha, but she hotly denies this, even after she is found to have established a subspace link with a console on the relay station and deleted a number of Rocha's personal logs, including a letter he was planning to send to Starfleet. Citing her as "belligerant and insubordinate", Rocha had planned to ask for a formal hearing. Knowing her pattern of running away in panic when she is afraid, La Forge advises her to stay and face what has happened, and she agrees. Cmdr. Morag arrives shortly thereafter. He describes how he investigated the station when they did not answer his hails. He confesses that he was the one who tried to bypass the access protocols and filched a number of priority Starfleet messages, but that while he saw blood and signs of a struggle, he did not kill anyone. Dr. Crusher discovers that the cellular residue she has been analyzing isn't Rocha's remains, but a coalescent organism that feeds off other life forms, then assumes their shape. Rocha never worked at the station; it was the shapeshifter who killed him at his last post of duty in the remote Triona System and took his place. Crusher warns that what appears to be Aquiel may actually be the creature. Meanwhile, Aquiel introduces La Forge to a Haliian custom in which their minds can telepathically connect, amplified by a large crystal ornament called a Canar. Riker breaks in and disrupts their session. While Aquiel is examined, La Forge returns to his quarters, where he's been keeping Aquiel's dog Maura. The dog attacks him; it, not Aquiel, is the creature. Aquiel is grateful to La Forge for his advice and friendship. She knows she is not an ideal Starfleet officer, but tells him she is considering staying in Starfleet and perhaps one day serving aboard the Enterprise. Background Information * Many production staff members were disappointed with this episode and was felt to be the weakest episode of the generally good sixth season. * In the TNG Companion, Jeri Taylor says she felt Renée Jones was not suited to the nature of the series and that she and the chemistry between her and LeVar Burton "never clicked". * The look of the coalescent organism also disappointed the staff. The designer said in an interview, that many names were given to the creature, and that "... Mr. Peanut was probably the kindest that I had.". * With Colm Meaney (Miles O'Brien) and Rosalind Chao's (Keiko O'Brien) departure from the series to Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, TNG had lost its only married couple. It was hoped that this episode would show that marriage and serious relationships still existed in the 24th century. *There are several references barely legible in Keith Rocha's log on the screen, including his linking of an Andorian comm channel, having a competition with a Ryan aboard the [[USS Saratoga|USS Saratoga]], Starbase 237 in the Delta Vega sector, and that Starfleet had diverted several starships to "the Epsilon IX station", implying they rebuilt it after Star Trek: The Motion Picture. *Also, in the logs, the stardates are sequential by dates: "46455, 46456, 46457, 46458..." *This episode was closely based on the 1944 film Laura, starring Gene Tierney, in which a detective investigating the murder of a woman named Laura falls in love with her, only to discover that she is alive and may herself be a killer. Links and References Guest Stars *Renée Jones as Aquiel Uhnari *Wayne Grace as Torak *Reg E. Cathey as Morag *Michael Braveheart as Martinez (uncredited) References 47; Batarael; Canar; coalescent organism; "Cold Moon Over Blackwater"; Delta Vega sector; Deriben V; disruptors; Epsilon IX station; "Fatal Revenge, The"; Halii; Haliian; Haliian language; Horath; iced coffee; Ipai sector; Klingon Empire; Maura; memory module; message delay buffer; micro-vaporize; Muskan seed punch; Chief Pendleton; IKS Qu'Vat; Relay Station 47; Relay Station 194; Rocha, Keith; USS Saratoga; Sector 2520; Shianna; shuttlecraft; Starbase 12; Starbase 212; Starbase 237; Starfleet Command; subspace relay station; Triona system; Phaser type-2; Verne Category:TNG episodes de:Aquiel es:Aquiel nl:Aquiel